Chapter Five

Shawsie shoved at the front door of the brownstone which seemed stuck—Damn! What was she doing wrong? Suddenly, it flew open, and she almost fell through the doorway. She ran inside, down the hall. Robin looked up from his magazine and half smiled.

“Hey, kid, I thought you forgot,” he said softly. The other couple in the waiting room grinned and rolled their eyes. What a joker. Like any of them could forget an appointment like this!

Shawsie looked at her watch, even though she had looked at almost nothing else for the past half an hour: 6:20.

“Did they call us already? Does Neil know I’m late?”

Robin put down the magazine and took her hands in his. They were ice-cold and trembling. “Shawsie,” he said, keeping his voice low and turning his back on their audience. “You have got to calm down. It’s not a date with the executioner. It’s a doctor. He has no idea you’re late. The fucking door hasn’t opened once since I got here at five-thirty.”

“It hasn’t? Oh, gee, that’s good news!” Shawsie unbuttoned her coat and hung it on the wooden tree in the corner. She glanced toward the reception desk.

“No nurse?”

Robin shrugged. “Maybe they don’t get paid overtime. Or maybe there’s one in there with him. But I haven’t seen anyone. Come on.”

He reached over and pulled her into the chair next to him. “Now, since we have a moment, I think we should take a close look at your competition.” He pulled a stack of magazines onto his lap. “For starters, why didn’t you guys come up with this?”

He opened a magazine for younger men to a cheesy-looking spread featuring two bottle blondes hanging on a guy with enough bulging muscles to be a float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. She smiled tentatively.

“Or this?” He went on, through the entire pile, showing her amateurish photo spreads, or third-choice subjects given third-choice treatment, and soon she was laughing and leaning closer to his chair and inhaling his cologne and wishing they could go to Fitzer’s for a beer. How long had it been since life was that simple?

An inner door opened. “Mr. and Mrs. Brody?” A nurse held a thick folder in her hand.

The other couple smiled their encouragement. “Good luck to you!” the man boomed. “We’re not till six-thirty, so he’s practically on time!”

Robin and Shawsie followed the nurse down a silent carpeted hallway into Neil’s office. “He’ll be with you shortly,” she said, depositing the folder on Neil’s desk and leaving them to sit, small as children in the oversize leather chairs. The walls were paneled in dark wood, and all but obscured by Neil’s numerous framed degrees. The bookshelves were bulgingly full, and the silver picture frames that lined the desk boasted shots of Neil with Sari and the kids. They were all tanned, all in T-shirts. White teeth flashed. Shawsie wondered who their dentist was.

She focused on a recent picture of Neil on the Oprah show: smiling, relaxed, looking very much like the ex-hippie he was, with his too-long hair and a gold earring glinting in one ear. Like a latter-day Jesus, Shawsie thought. A fertility messiah, holding his palms open over barren women, willing them to bear fruit. She glanced at Robin, sitting in his chair facing straight ahead, sweat glistening at his hairline.

The door opened. “Robin, Shawsie, thanks so much for waiting!”

They both jumped to their feet, effusive in their greetings.

Standing ovation acknowledged, he motioned them to sit. They sat.

Neil opened their folder and turned the pages, scanning wildly, bringing himself up-to-date. He leaned back in his chair. “Some people would say three strikes and you’re out,” he said, looking at them meaningfully. “Have you considered adopting?”

Shawsie felt as if he had punched her. “What?”

Robin reached for her arm, which she snatched away.

“Adopting? After forty-five thousand dollars and almost two years of hell? Are you out of your mind?” As if from a distance, Shawsie heard that she was shouting. Probably shouldn’t do that, she thought. Too late now.

Robin grabbed the arms of his chair. He hadn’t felt this kind of panic since he was a kid and his father would wake him, shouting, when he came home drunk in the middle of the night. It wasn’t the words, necessarily, it was the noise, the sudden terror it brought. He had never heard Shawsie raise her voice, he realized. In all those years, even when they were just friends. Not once.

Neil grew still. He waited. Robin stuttered an apology. Shawsie tried catching her breath. “No,” she said. “No. No. You are such a great doctor that you go on Oprah and tell women you can help them? Then help me. God damn you.”

The silence was awful. Robin wiped his face with his sleeve. “Neil, I’m sorry, man. Really.”

Neil nodded, but his eyes were on Shawsie. “What do you want to do?”

She stared. “I want to have a baby is what I want to do. And if I have to do this ten more times, I’m going to have one. And you’re going to help me. That’s what.”

Neil turned to Robin. “Do you agree?”

Robin looked at Shawsie, nodding vigorously. “Of course.”

Neil closed the folder. “Then we go on,” he said briskly, standing up. “Call Dorothy and make the arrangements. This time, though, I’d also like you to see an acupuncturist I’ve been working with. We’re doing a study on blood flow to the uterus, and I must say, even though it sounds a bit out there, we’ve been seeing some real benefits.”

He shook Robin’s clammy hand and turned toward Shawsie, who looked up at him, her face red with shame. She opened her mouth, but he spoke first.

“It’s okay, Shawsie. This process takes a terrible toll, and I know it’s not personal. Really.” He hugged her. “You’re doing great. You both are. This is the hardest thing two people ever have to do together. You both deserve a round of applause.” His smile was small but real. “Go out and have a drink or something tonight.”

Shawsie’s eyebrows flew up, but he shook his head. “One drink, one night, you’re not even taking anything now,” he said. “Give yourselves a break. And you don’t even have to do what comes naturally when you go home. Just get some rest.” With that, he was gone.

Shawsie looked at Robin and sank into her chair. “I shouldn’t have,” she said weakly.

He sat back down, too. “Come on, Shawsie, Neil knows you’re just stressed. And I think he gave us some good advice, eh?”

She looked into his face. He looked winded and moist, like he had just run a great distance.

“Let’s go to Fitzer’s,” he said. “I’m buying. Okay?”

He stood and extended his hand. She took it, although she couldn’t see it through her tears.

“Okay,” she said. She stood, and he held her while she cried, and after what seemed like a very long time they gathered up their coats and walked down the hall—from the inside, at least, the front door opened just fine—and they went out into the night to sit together and have a beer.

         

“Sweetie?”

“Hmmm.”

“I’m hungry. Are you hungry?”

“Hmmm.”

“I should have known. When are you ever hungry?”

Neil switched on the bedside lamp, and a golden light warmed the chintz drapes and the red carpet. He walked over to the desk and rummaged through the drawers for a room-service menu.

“Yes, good evening. I’d like to order some dinner.”

Ponce picked up her head and squinted at him through the light.

“A Caesar salad, the roasted salmon, two vodkas, neat, a bottle of Pinot Grigio, and a club sandwich. What?” He listened a moment. “Yes, please.”

Ponce smiled and put her head back on the pillow. “They asked if I wanted mayonnaise?” she asked after he hung up.

“They did. You do. It’s coming.” He smiled at her, still holding the phone to his ear. “Checking my service,” he said.

Ponce swung her legs over the side of the bed. She knew that next up was the call to Sari. “I’m getting in the shower now,” she said, closing the bathroom door behind her. She glanced at her wrist, suddenly curious about the time, but realized she had left her watch on the bedside table. Never mind. She wasn’t the one who had to be anywhere. He did. And not until the morning.

She loved escaping with Neil for these out-of-town medical meetings. They usually lasted only two nights, but Ponce appreciated a good hotel and they always stayed in one, away from the convention-center barns where the meetings took place. Utter privacy, and no one was the wiser. It was Ponce’s routine never to leave the room, except for an hour or so in the morning so the maid could make it up. Then she would go back and read, nap, maybe call a masseuse. Neil would come in and out, depending on his presentation schedule. All in all, these trips were like forty-eight-hour retreats, a chance to leave the real world behind. Half the time, Ponce couldn’t even remember what city she was in. It wasn’t the point.

How long was it now, three years with Neil? They had known each other much longer, of course, from when she was still married to Lee. Sari wasn’t much in evidence then, staying home in Brooklyn with her babies and her brand-new clinic. Which made Neil, a hot young doctor at Carnegie Hill Hospital, whose board Lee ran, a very useful extra man at dinner parties. Though by Lee’s standards, he was unaccountably bohemian. His hair was too long, he wore an earring—years before it was fashionable—and almost never wore a tie.

“What the hell is wrong with him?” Lee asked Ponce one night. “Shouldn’t someone tell him that the sixties are over?”

Ponce only laughed. “He’s a free spirit,” she said.

“Nothing is free,” Lee had grumbled in return.

What Ponce liked about Neil from the start was that even though he was obviously smart—brilliant, some people said—he never showed off. His emotional connection to his work, why he did it and how, was as important to him as the science behind it. And he was so patient! No matter how many screaming, sobbing women he would see, he seemed never to lose his temper or get a headache or be fed up. When she spoke to him during the day he was always calm. Focused. He sincerely wanted to help them. That wasn’t something you could fake.

Neil was exactly Ponce’s age, and had grown up in suburban New Jersey. His father was a pediatrician, his mother worked as his nurse (and had painted all the pictures on the office walls), and they practiced out of the house where Neil and his three older sisters grew up. Neil was the object of scorn and pity among his high school friends. To have both parents home all the time! The party potential was absolutely nil. But he never minded it. He was the darling of his family, close to both his hippie parents. His mom, with her waist-length hair and Birkenstocks, practiced yoga daily in a town where the other women played tennis, popped Elavils, and wore Pucci into the city for their husbands’ business dinners. His father was totally cool, as parents went. When one of his patients, a fifteen-year-old girl, got pregnant in her sophomore year, he took her to Planned Parenthood himself, then sat with her when she told her parents so they wouldn’t kill her. Which, incredibly, they didn’t.

In the summers, Neil’s dad worked as a doctor at a camp in upstate New York, and Neil spent many happy years there. He grew his hair, smoked pot, and was catnip to every girl who met him. He looked like Al Pacino in Serpico.

He met Sari in his junior year at Harvard. Her parents were on the faculty there and she had the same close relationship with them as he had with his own parents. When he went to their house, it felt as if he had never left home and he liked that. Sari was very pretty, with her own dark good looks, and possibly the smartest person Neil had ever met. His dad was crazy for her, and the feeling was mutual: It was because of his loving example, Sari always said, that she had become a pediatrician herself.

Though Neil had never planned on marrying young, he did, and he and Sari enrolled at Harvard Medical School together. It was in those years that one of Neil’s sisters married a lawyer, a straitlaced type out of keeping with the rest of his Woodstock Nation family, but they all figured that was why she liked him.

After they’d been married for two years and still hadn’t had a baby, the lawyer came home one day and announced he was getting a divorce. He said he was completely justified in doing so. The Bible, he claimed, said that if you marry a woman who proves to be barren, you have the right to find another wife.

Neil’s sister was devastated; the entire family was. Neil went to the gynecology department to look at the latest research on fertility. It was 1982, and he was shocked at how little there was to learn. He decided then to make fertility his specialty, and in ten years he was at the forefront of the field. In ten more years the science had exploded and so had his career. The good news about his sister was that she had finally remarried and, with Neil’s help, become the joyful mother of healthy twin boys, now ten years old. (Her former husband had also remarried and remained childless. His Bible, apparently, made no provisions for male infertility.)

Although Neil eventually found himself one of the hottest doctors in New York, Sari had gotten her own share of publicity, years earlier, even making the cover of Manhattan magazine when she opened her pioneering Brooklyn clinic. She and Neil had rehabilitated a brownstone in Park Slope—a neighborhood that was still a bit raffish at the time—and there was a photo of her holding one of their three children and looking up into the flue of a fireplace that Neil kept on his desk for years. My personal force of nature, he called her.

Being a force of nature left Sari little time to act as a wifely accessory to Neil’s career, which he didn’t care about one whit. Carnegie Hill Hospital was brilliantly endowed to do the kind of research he wanted to do, and having to periodically drink Château Lafite Rothschild at sprawling Park Avenue apartments didn’t seem too high a price to pay. Lee Morris had taken a particular interest in him early on. The old man was a prickly sort, an autocrat who expected an entire emergency room to grind to a halt if he had so much as an ingrown toenail. After listening to a presentation of Neil’s, Lee called up the young doctor and had him over for a drink. Lee saw the value of having a local miracle worker tucked into his back pocket. He could say to virtually anyone in New York: “Baby trouble? I’ve just the man for you.”

He actually never pushed his privileges too far, and Neil, in turn, didn’t mind showing up at the dinner parties thrown by Lee’s stunning, much younger wife. The first time Neil came to the Sutton Place duplex, he found himself, champagne glass in hand, standing utterly alone on an expanse of marble floor. Everyone else seemed to know one another, and they were all gathered in clumps at what seemed like a very far distance. Neil amused himself by imagining the range of diseases he might be suffering to justify his quarantine.

“Dr. Grossman?”

The most beautiful woman in the world stood before him. Her blond hair seemed almost white in the light shining behind her, and her dark blue eyes seemed huge in her delicately heart-shaped face. Her lips were slightly parted, and she reached out her hand.

“Tuberculosis,” he blurted.

She looked alarmed. “What?”

He blushed. “Oh, I, I’m sorry,” he said. “I mean, no, I don’t have tuberculosis, and neither do you, I’m sure. Though now of course I wish I did, because I would be far away in a sanatorium in the mountains and would never have to admit who I am or that I ever said it.” He felt the prick of adrenaline under his armpits as his heartbeat galloped, and he wondered just how slippery the marble was underfoot.

The most beautiful woman in the world motioned to a waiter, who approached with a tray of drinks. Neil surrendered his empty glass as she helped herself to two flutes of champagne and handed him one. Her smile was warm.

“To your health, Dr. Grossman. And mine,” she said, smiling. “I’m Ponce Morris.”

He felt the blood flood his face. He hadn’t been this lame in front of a girl since he was fourteen and had spent ten minutes at the final social in camp trying to unfasten Joan Schwarz’s bra in the back before realizing that the clasp was up front.

“Mrs. Morris, to your health,” he managed, before gulping the champagne. He pressed his lips together so he wouldn’t burp. What the hell was wrong with him? He was a doctor and a married man, and in his day, abbreviated though it might have been, quite the ladies’ man.

The bell rang for dinner, and he didn’t see her again until it was time to leave. He had calmed down considerably since the cocktail hour, and had made impressive progress persuading a wealthy dowager intent on having grandchildren to fund an upcoming study.

“Mrs. Morris, thank you so much, it was a lovely evening,” he said smoothly.

Ponce laughed. “No shortness of breath now? Are you sure?”

Neil stared. What did she mean? Had she seen that he’d been so light-headed when he met her that he thought he might fall?

She smiled. “Just checking on your tuberculosis,” she said, shaking his hand. “I believe you’re cured.”

On his way home that night he convinced himself never to drink champagne again. It made him behave like a fool. With any luck, he assured himself, he wouldn’t see that woman again for at least a year, and by that time she would have forgotten all about this.

To the contrary, by the time Ponce and Lee divorced four years later, Neil had seen her plenty. They were occasional dinner partners, either at her home or someone else’s, and they met often on his hospital’s cocktail-party circuit. Sari had managed to turn up a few times, and she and Ponce got along well. Although Neil had overcome his initial awkwardness with Ponce, that volcanic thrill of seeing her the first time had never quite left him. He sometimes found himself thinking of her during his workday, or over the weekend. Aimlessly. Recalling a word or a laugh.

When Ponce and Lee split, Neil had called her. Did she need any help? He knew a great lawyer. Did she have a place to live? Did she want to grab a drink and have some company? He couldn’t have been more solicitous.

Ponce was direct, as always. “Neil, you’re sweet, but here’s the situation. I am a lawyer, I’m still working at Corning Hilliard and I am surrounded by other lawyers. I’ve rented a studio apartment near Bloomingdale’s, which is convenient to the office, and I’m actually involved with someone at the moment, so between that and work I am well fixed for drinks. I appreciate your kindness, but let me give you some advice. Lee is very, very angry with me right now. And he is nothing if not vindictive. If he were to hear that you were lending me a hand, doing anything—and I mean anything—for me, he could make your life miserable. You don’t need that. So thank you for being decent and for being a pal. Give my best to Sari.”

Their paths did not cross again for almost three years. He thought of her less and less, truth be told, especially after reading that she was having a very public affair with John St. John, the mystery writer. But one evening during rounds, after Lee had been diagnosed with cancer and installed in the finest room Carnegie Hill had to offer, Neil made it a point to stop in. He was shocked to find Ponce sitting there, in a chair by the bed, reading The New York Times as calmly as if she were on the bus.

Lee, who was sedated, lifted two fingers in greeting, then closed his eyes. He hated people seeing him at such a disadvantage. He had discovered that closing his eyes made them go away. Ponce took Neil’s arm and led him out into the hall, shutting the door behind her.

“How are you?” she asked, as warmly and as full of light as he remembered. She did look a bit older. Too thin. Pinched around the gills. But she was obviously exhausted. She told him about taking a leave from the firm to nurse Lee. He started asking questions, but she just shook her head. “We can talk about it later,” she said, gesturing toward the door. “It’s just complicated, is all,” she said. “He was very, very good to me for a very long time. I feel I need to do this now.”

He took her hand and held it in his. “I admire you,” he said. “And I think Lee must appreciate it very much.”

When Lee died a few weeks later, Neil called and asked to see her. “This time you’re going to say yes,” he heard himself say. And she did. She met him at Lee’s apartment with two of his lawyers and spent an hour talking about Lee’s bequests for the hospital, making sure that Neil’s department was provided for. Then, with the lawyers still there, she walked Neil to the door. “Thank you for coming,” she said. “I’ll call you.”

Weeks went by. Neil was angry. Yes, he was behaving like an adolescent. But so what? He wanted her to pay attention to him. And why shouldn’t she? He was a catch. Of course, he was also married and the father of three children. So why didn’t he feel that way?

She called on a Monday. “I’ve left Corning for good,” she said. “Packed my last box today. And I’m ready to celebrate.”

His anger vanished. “Where? When?” He sounded too eager, he thought.

“Come over at six,” she said. “I have a bottle of Cristal that’s been waiting for an occasion.” She heard him hesitate. “Oh, that’s right. As I recall, champagne gives you tuberculosis. I have a full bar, too, Dr. Grossman. Don’t worry.”

At six he walked through the elevator door into her apartment. The Cristal was opened, a vodka was poured, and by six-thirty, they were in bed. At ten, he announced he was leaving Sari.

“I’ve never felt this way in my entire life,” he declared, holding her close against his chest. “I’ve heard about this, I’ve read about this, but nothing I’ve ever experienced has been like this.”

Ponce smiled gently. “Neil, I am not a home wrecker, and neither are you,” she said quietly. “Now listen. I have no intention of getting married again. And tonight aside, you have no intention of destroying your family. So let’s not discuss this again.”

He looked hurt, but she wouldn’t budge. “I mean it,” she said, and by the time he got home and was pulling back the covers on the bed with Sari fast asleep in it, he knew that Ponce was right. Christ, what had he done? He studied his wife’s peaceful face in the light from the hallway and felt terrible remorse. He looked away. The truth was, he simply couldn’t help himself. It was like a fever. Not like insanity, because he knew just what he was doing as he was doing it, and he loved it. Every second of it. But Ponce was right. He did love his family. Hell, he even loved his wife. None of it made sense. Except that being with Ponce that night surpassed any other sexual moment of his life. He didn’t know why. It just did.

He got up and took a pillow with him to sleep downstairs. Sari didn’t deserve this. He was wrong. The whole thing was wrong.

Nevertheless, he called Ponce the minute he left the house the next morning. No answer. All day he kept calling, in between every appointment. No answer. Finally, at five o’clock, she picked up.

“I’ve got to see you.” His voice was ragged.

“Well, okay. I’m home tonight.”

Again he was there at six, and this time he stayed until midnight. This went on every night for the rest of the week. Late on Friday, Ponce smiled at him. “Bored yet?” she asked. “’Cause you have a weekend in Brooklyn ahead of you.”

He sighed. He was in the throes of an addiction that he felt might consume him. Wished would consume him. Obliterate him. Make him never have to think about his family. His wife. Or his parents, who had lived together and worked together every single day for fifty-one years and couldn’t stand the notion of being apart for even an hour. It’s how he thought he would be with Sari. Of course, their situation was completely different. Neil’s mom had worked with his dad—not alone, on her own career. And Neil was proud of Sari, he really was. She was a fine person, an excellent doctor, a loving mother. And wife.

How much did he really know about Ponce, anyway? She too seemed to be a fine person, one with a highly developed sense of justice. Well, not about sleeping with another woman’s husband, certainly, but about everything else. She was a nice person with a good sense of fun. Was he in love with her? He didn’t know. But he was obsessed with her. When he was away from her, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. When he was with her, he couldn’t stop touching her. He was gone. Just gone.

Ponce had gotten up to get him a drink and now sat beside him on the bed.

“I will see you whenever you like,” she said. “Within reason, of course. But you go home tonight and pay attention to your family. Think about them. They are the focus of your life, Neil, not me. You only think I am.”

She was right, of course. Within weeks, Neil found himself adapting. He worked out a way not to think about Ponce when he was at home, and he worked out a way not to think about Ponce when he was at work, and he spent the hours at her apartment feeling more vital and purely himself than he had since he was a teenager. Until the moment he had to leave, each moment burst with possibility. Then, like a junkie, he fought against wanting more, every second, until he got it.

For her part, Ponce was surprised by how much she liked Neil. Felt for him. Yes, she liked sleeping with him, but more than that she liked the way his mind worked. When he talked about his research, about his patients, she saw a perfect nexus of heart and brain that moved her. She admired his dedication and his curiosity and his devotion to knowing more. To trying to help. She looked forward to seeing him, and missed him when they were apart. Like the song said, it was almost like being in love. Or maybe it was love. After all, love had quite a reputation in some circles. People swore by it. In her own life, anytime she had come close to it, she’d felt as if a giant’s hand were closing around her throat. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t see, the person who claimed to be loving her had her fixed in place, and wriggle though she might she could never break free.

         

As Ponce turned off the shower, she heard the doorbell ring and a muffled call of “Room service!”

“One minute,” Neil called.

She put on a robe and combed out her hair, and as she walked back into the room Neil was opening the wine.

“Hey, beautiful,” he said, smiling.

“Hey, yourself,” she said, taking a glass. They stood in front of the large picture window and looked out at the lights spread beneath them. “Do you know, when I was in the shower, I couldn’t remember what city we were in,” she said. “And it didn’t even matter, because I’m with you, so I know where I am.” She looked up at him, serious. “I’ve never felt that about someone before,” she said.

He put down his drink and pulled her close, cupping her face in his hands, tracing her cheekbones with his thumbs. “I feel the same way,” he said tenderly. “That’s why we’re so high up tonight, Poncie. It’s our heaven.”

         

From her very drafty room at the Drake Hotel in Chicago, Babette looked out at the large chunks of ice floating on Lake Michigan and tried to stop shivering. She was more nervous than anything else, she thought, glancing at her open notebook. Yes, it was late February, but still. She was just overreacting—and with good reason. She had been dumbfounded when Topher approved her coming here, though once she discovered it was Shawsie who’d convinced him, it all made sense.

The dragon lady fashion director, Camille LaCroix (known to her staff alternately as La Cross We All Must Bear and Chlamydia, the Dark Secret of the Fashion Closet), had never seemed to like Babette. Or anyone else, for that matter. The previous year, one of Camille’s assistants had brought home a voodoo doll from Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and everyone in the fashion department had taken a turn stabbing it with antique hat pins they had bought especially for the occasion.

When Babette hand-delivered Camille the written pitch for the Carmen story, the older woman looked at her as if she were carrying typhus. Babette figured it was a lost cause, but what she couldn’t have predicted was the squabble between Camille and Topher during the ideas meeting the following week. When it was Camille’s turn to talk and she had started praising, yet again, a hot young Parisian designer, Topher interrupted her.

“Camille, you know what, doll, Boothby’s is actually an American rag,” he said, leaning back in his chair and lighting a cigarette in flagrant violation of the building code. “Are there no designers in this country who interest you?”

She blushed, just a bit. “Ah, Topher, but of course—”

He cut her off. “Not Donna or Calvin or Ralph. Sick. To. Death. Comprenez?”

The tension in the room escalated. Usually Topher was easygoing during these meetings. He had long ago assembled a top group of talent whom he trusted. This kind of display was rare indeed. But who knew what had gotten him going? It could have been an offhand remark from a rival editor at a cocktail party, or some pointed comment from a pretty waitress in Tribeca young enough to be his, um, niece. It was easy to tap into the encroaching terror they all felt as they got older that the magazine might not be cutting-edge anymore. Fashion was the first place that particular wrinkle showed.

Or perhaps Arnold Rubinstein, publisher from hell, had called Topher at five a.m. from his treadmill just to let him know that the last issue had struck him as a bit—how you say in English?—feh.

Camille recovered quickly. “There is much new talent here, absolument,” she said. “We can look at the scene in Miami or Los Angeles.”

He shook his head. “I’m tired of both. Where else?”

She took a deep breath. “Well, there is great activity of late in Chicago.” That Camille LaCroix found herself speaking the word “Chicago” out loud was the height of absurdity, she knew, but she had been around long enough to recognize when bosses grew tired of her. She had worked at Boothby’s almost four years now, longer than she had lasted at either Vogue or Elle. As early as the previous fall, though, she had begun to sense impatience from Topher. Maybe he thought the ad dollars looked flat. Maybe she really had pushed France too much at a time when it was just not popular. When he started making burqa jokes, saying that at least they’d be something different, she sat herself down and did some homework. She received the same press releases that Babette was pilfering from her staff, and she’d spent a few hours on the Internet after that. She knew she was going, but not without a fight.

“Chicago?” Topher seemed stunned into at least a moment of silence, so Camille went forward, talking about a crop of interesting designers there, both homegrown and immigrant talent. Young, she stressed. New.

Well, by the end of the meeting, she found herself headed for a shoot in Chicago. “Most of my people are not free for this, you know, with the fall collections coming up,” she said, beginning to backtrack. Having saved her ass in the short term, she was now threatened with freezing it off somewhere in middle America, a dismal-sounding region where she had never set foot and had planned on keeping it that way.

Topher waved her off. “Pull one or two of your people away from the fall collections, for chrissakes. How many of you need to go look at the same clothes anyway?”

Shawsie, who had kept quiet in the wake of Topher’s ill humor, piped up. “You know who you can take with you? Babette. Especially since you know she wants to go.”

Camille’s eyes opened wide.

“Yeah, she copied me and Topher on that pitch, actually,” Shawsie said, as the color flooded Camille’s face completely this time. “You know, one of the things we’ve always tried to do at Boothby’s, Camille, is to let the assistants have the chance to learn something, not just fetch us lattes all day long. I believe your spirit of mentoring needs work.”

Before she could respond, Topher said, “If Babette wants to do the Cuban chick, let her try. If it sucks, we can use it as a sidebar. And you can take full advantage of that gung-ho attitude of hers by having her arrange the studio time and the catering and all the other crap you can’t spare your own precious staff for.”

He thought he saw something then in Camille’s expression, and he didn’t like it. “No, babe, not even close,” he said, lighting another cigarette. “Not my type, particularly. But here’s a lesson for you: These kids are only twenty-five once. Who else would kill themselves to go to Chicago in February? And if she screws it up, fine. It’s only Chicago. Right?”

Camille nodded vigorously. “Oui, right,” she said, getting up to head back to her office. That she had lost Shawsie was a terrible blow.

All Babette knew at the time was that Camille summoned her a few days later.

“You copied your pitch to Shawsie and Topher?” was how she began.

Babette started to stammer. All the fashion assistants had told her to do it. Camille was a credit-grabbing bully, and it wasn’t until one of the associate editors had started copying Shawsie on her ideas that any of them got through. That girl left soon after, to become the fashion director at Harper’s Bazaar. But once she had gone over Camille’s head, the whole department followed suit. Like any pack of wolves, they moved together, smelled weakness together. Camille was sitting on one shaky throne and now they all waited together.

“Well, yes,” Babette finally managed. “Everyone in your department does it, and they told me to do it, too.”

Camille’s mouth tightened. She didn’t like the sound of that at all. How had she managed to lose her grip on Topher? Was it that wretched girl who had gone to Bazaar? It seemed that the trouble surfaced then. Well, whatever it was, she knew she had to, what did these childish Americans say, start to “play ball”?

“We have decided to do a spread about the Chicago fashion scene as a whole,” Camille went on. “You can do your story on Carmen, if there turns out to be a story, but you will be there to, how you say, make the trains run on time. You help my people book the studio, arrange the catering, oui?”

Babette was beside herself with excitement. The fashion kids all said that Topher was turning on Camille and she’d be out in a matter of months, if not weeks. Maybe if Babette did a good job she could move over there just as a nice new editor came in.

“Yes!” she exclaimed. “That is so fantastic! And I know the Carmen story will be great. Really.”

Camille had already turned away, picking up the phone. Babette wasn’t sure if she was dismissed, so she stood, waiting. Finally, Camille flicked her hand.

Babette was too exhilarated to care. She had virtually flown back to her own desk and immediately called the PR firm about arranging an interview with Carmen. She called her mother. She even called Robin and left a message on his cell.

Then she went down the hall to Shawsie’s office. Babette waved at her through the glass wall, and Shawsie, in the middle of a call, motioned her to come inside.

“I can’t thank you enough because I know that without you, Camille would never have said yes,” Babette gushed when Shawsie hung up.

“It’s nothing,” Shawsie said. “We really do believe in letting assistants try to learn something here. In this business, there’s something to be said for developing talent and keeping it in house. And your pitch fit perfectly. How did you know about Chicago fashion?”

“Well, I spent some time in the fashion department,” Babette said, “and looked through the releases—the other assistants showed me some—but it’s just so nice that you and Topher stuck up for me.”

“How did you know we did?” Shawsie asked.

“One of the assistants said that Camille came out of that meeting spitting mad because you guys ganged up on her.” Babette caught herself. “I mean, I’m sure you didn’t—”

Shawsie laughed. “Sure we did. Well, that’s fine. Just have a good trip, and write a good piece.” She turned to pick up the phone again.

“Uh, Shawsie, can I ask you something?” Babette shifted from one foot to the other. “Did you ever ask Ponce about having a drink?”

“Oh!” Shawsie clapped her hand to her head. “You know, I did, Babette, I’m sorry, I’ve had so much on my mind, I forgot to mention it. It’s just that Ponce has such a heavy court schedule now, she’s swamped. And she has a close friend who lives out of town who’s having a personal crisis that she’s helping take care of, so yes, I did ask, but she’s just so jammed, I think we might have to put it off for a while.”

Babette was crestfallen, though she tried not to show it. “Oh, okay. Thanks for asking.”

She fretted about that conversation for the next few days, the victory of her Chicago trip dimmed. She had been counting on that drink, convinced that with just one more meeting she and Ponce would click for real. But she knew better than to pressure Shawsie, who had already done her a good turn. In fact, Babette had resolved to return the favor. She was through sleeping with Robin. Shawsie had been nothing but nice to her from the beginning, and it was time for Babette to step up.

The following week, Babette spotted Rachel Lerner sitting in an empty office. She must be closing a piece, Babette thought. That was the only time she came in. There she was, grim and focused, her oversize glasses perched low on her nose, her hair pulled back in a knot with an unlit cigarette dangling from her mouth. Babette breathed deep and worked up the courage to approach.

“Hey,” she said, standing in the doorway. Rachel was wearing a black cashmere twinset, gray pants, and pearl earrings. As an office wag had once characterized Rachel’s dress code: ready to attend a funeral at a moment’s notice.

Rachel looked up over the tops of her glasses as if somehow a barnyard animal had made its odoriferous way into her personal space.

“Excuse me?” she said, which immediately conjured images of Babette’s grandmother in Georgia, who just hated when she said “Hey” instead of “Hello, how are you?”

“Oh, uh, hi, Rachel, how are you?” Babette stammered.

“Fine.” Rachel waited.

“Well, uh…”

Rachel waited some more.

Babette stood immobilized at the door, picturing at least seven different pieces of jewelry the other woman could have added to soften that headmistress ensemble. She forced herself to focus on the business at hand.

“I’m going to do a profile on this hot new fashion designer in Chicago, and I sort of just wanted to get your advice because, you know, you’re so great at writing profiles and everything.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Well…maybe some help with the questions I should ask?”

Rachel didn’t change expression. “Like?”

Babette opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She wondered how Rachel got anyone to tell her anything in those in-depth interviews she did. Maybe her subjects all wept because they were terrified.

“No, really,” Rachel went on. “What’s the story?”

Babette recited the facts from the press release.

“Well, past the clothes, which I assume you’ll have to evaluate in some way, I would think the story is the relationship with the mother.”

“It is?”

“It’s a big part. Are you speaking with the mother?”

“Uh, I don’t know. I don’t think she speaks English.”

“Then find someone who speaks Spanish and bring her with you. Don’t depend on them to get a translator for her. You’ll never know if they’re telling the truth.”

Babette waited.

“You don’t know the real circumstances of how they escaped or how they got to Chicago or what’s gone on since,” Rachel continued. “For all you know, at least part of the family could be here illegally. But in any case, I would concentrate on the emotional connections: between Carmen and her mother, Carmen and Cuba, Carmen and her clothes. Right?”

Babette nodded. This had been a major mistake. She thought desperately of how to change the subject. “Uh, can I ask you something else?”

Rachel had already turned back to the computer screen, but again she stared at Babette over the tops of her glasses.

“You’re good friends with Ponce Morris, right?”

Rachel nodded.

“Well, I was thinking that she would be a great profile subject for Boothby’s. I thought if I do a good job on Carmen, maybe I could do a piece on Ponce.”

Rachel raised her eyebrows. “Boothby’s is a national magazine, and Ponce is only known locally,” she said. “Who’d be interested?”

Babette dug in. “I think most people know who Lee Morris was, and the fact that she’s running around New York with all these men whose wives never even say boo—”

Rachel shook her head disdainfully and cut Babette off. “What do you mean, running around?” she asked. “She just happens to be close friends with a number of couples—both people in a couple, including the wives. She’s not sleeping with these men, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“I’m not implying that at all. What I’m trying to say is, well, I heard that you once described Ponce as a spare wife, and I thought that was such a great way to put it, because she is as close to the woman in a couple as the man and because she isn’t a lesbian, or a threat to anyone’s marriage, so that’s actually the angle.”

Rachel narrowed her eyes. “How do you know I said that?” she asked, recalling her lunch with Ponce at the Four Seasons.

Babette felt her throat close. The way she knew, she realized too late, was that Robin had told her. Ponce had told Shawsie, and Robin said that Ponce had loved that phrase, as he did—wasn’t Rachel clever!—but she knew she couldn’t possibly tell that to Rachel.

“It was at Jacqueline Posner’s party,” she said, feeling her heart thump. “You must have said it to someone who repeated it. I, I can’t really remember now. But that doesn’t matter. It’s such a great description! It would even make the perfect title for a piece about her, don’t you think? I could put an asterisk next to it and make sure they print ‘Courtesy of Rachel Lerner’ at the bottom of the page.” She smiled and hoped she wasn’t sweating through her blouse.

Rachel didn’t actually smile, but she shrugged and Babette was fairly sure she accepted her story. “That’s certainly not necessary, but if you can convince Ponce, then go for it,” Rachel said, turning back to her computer screen with finality. “Gus says that Lee lived for publicity, and Ponce lives to avoid it. So good luck.”

Babette retreated and immediately started worrying about Carmen’s mother. Maybe Rachel was wrong. It was a fashion piece, not a profile, right? Shit! Why had she even bothered? But she was compulsive enough herself to call the public relations people and ask if Carmen’s mother was available. They said they’d have to check. She secretly hoped they’d say no. Then it wouldn’t be her fault.

         

She walked over to the thermostat, which insisted it was 70 degrees and picked up her list of questions one more time. A car was coming to take her to Carmen’s showroom down in the Loop. The PR people had said that it would be up to Carmen whether Babette could speak to her mother, so she should ask her at the interview.

Babette looked at herself in the mirror. She had bought a red cashmere sweater, just so Carmen would know how much she liked color herself, and paired it with a bright pink cardigan tied over her shoulders. She so hoped Carmen would like her. If she did, the piece would write itself. She didn’t want to do anything to make her subject uncomfortable. After all, what if someone was doing a piece on her and wanted to speak to her mother? She would rather die.

The phone rang. Her car was downstairs.

On the way downtown, she stared out the window at Michigan Avenue. Neiman Marcus. Saks Fifth Avenue. Burberry. She watched a line of people stretching out the door of a small popcorn shop. That looked like fun. Would she ever have fun again? Her fashion department scheme had seemed so promising. But for the three days she’d been here, setting things up for the shoot, it seemed she had done nothing but take endless shit from Camille, who, predictably, hated Chicago on sight. It was cold, it was provincial, there was nothing to eat except big ugly hunks of red meat. When Babette and the two other assistants wanted to visit the Art Institute on a lunch break, Camille refused. This was not a school trip, she had scolded. They were here to work.

The car stopped. Babette took a deep breath and didn’t seem to take another until she had entered the anteroom and given her name to the receptionist. Soon enough she was led inside, where a small dark-haired women knelt next to a fitting model, pinning a hem. “Hello,” she said, the pins still in her mouth, hurriedly finishing the job. She rose and extended her hand to Babette.

“I am Carmen,” she said. “I am glad to meet you.”

Babette smiled. “So am I. I mean, I’m glad to meet you, too.”

The next hour passed as if in a dream, Babette thought later. Carmen was so lovely! She showed her all her designs and spoke eloquently about Cuba and the world she’d left behind. She talked about arriving in Chicago as a child and feeling that the cold wind was like a knife that could cut her in half. She recalled her faulty English and the hours she had spent in the public library with a kind librarian who had helped her. How cool was that, Babette enthused. Her mother was a librarian! She scribbled down notes but also kept her tape recorder going the whole hour. She didn’t want to miss a word.

When it was time to leave, she thanked Carmen profusely.

“You know, you should come to Bloomingdale’s tomorrow morning,” Carmen said.

“What do you mean?” Babette asked uneasily. Tomorrow was the first day of the shoot, and she was scheduled to be in the studio from ten till six.

“I’m doing a personal appearance there at ten,” Carmen said. “Not exactly prime time, but the new designers have to take what we can get. My mother is coming, so you could talk to her if you still want to. The PR people said you asked to meet her.”

Damn. Babette had completely forgotten about the mother. If she didn’t meet her, Rachel Lerner would tell everyone she was a bad reporter. But what about the shoot? She would have to throw herself on Camille’s mercy.

“I’ll be there,” Babette said.

She practically floated back to the street. The interview had gone perfectly. Her questions must have been good, because the answers were great. She’d done it! But as soon as she got back into the waiting car, her elation evaporated into the fear of having to ask Camille about being late to the shoot. She gnawed at her fingernails the whole way back to the hotel, trying to think of what to say. When she was in her room, she called.

“Oui?”

“Uh, Camille, hi, it’s Babette.”

“Yes? The studio is booked, yes?”

“Yes, it is. Uh, but the only thing is, it turns out I have to go to Bloomingdale’s tomorrow at ten for the Carmen piece. It’s only for an hour, I’ll be at the studio by eleven-thirty, but it’s the only way for me to talk to Carmen’s mother. And I’m worried that if I don’t talk to her and Topher asks me why, I’ll be in trouble.”

Camille sighed but held her tongue. She knew better than to get in the middle of this one. “Yes, fine, eleven-thirty,” she said, and hung up.

Babette was back to being elated. She knew she should sit down and type up her notes, transcribe her tape, and write a lead when it was all fresh in her mind—everyone said that was the way to do it, not just Rachel—but she was too happy to sit still. She called the two other assistants, who, exhausted as they were by doing extra reporting of their own, were thrilled for her. They agreed that a celebration was in order and, using their Boothby’s credit card, took themselves to Morton’s, where they ordered forty-eight-ounce porterhouse steaks, drank dirty martinis, and gorged on cottage fries and onion rings. They took the leftover steak back to the hotel in doggie bags, and after stopping into one of their rooms to get a plastic shoe-shine bag, filled it up with meat, and took the elevator to La Cross’s suite. Trying not to laugh too loudly, they hung it on her doorknob.

“Trust me,” one of the assistants gasped to Babette as they ran down the fire exit stairs back to their own rooms: “Paris was never this much fun.”

         

Babette wasn’t sleeping well. Too much booze, and too much steak. When she awoke around two to pee, she couldn’t remember if they had really hung a bag of meat on Camille’s door or if she had only dreamed it—but she did manage to remember that she hadn’t prepared a single question for Rosa.

By nine she was showered, dressed, and filled with the same nervous energy that had plagued her for weeks about this piece. It turned out that Bloomingdale’s was in a mall almost across the street from the Drake. As she made her way up the escalators, she noted an elevator marked “Four Seasons Hotel.” She decided to get a table in its coffee shop and write down some questions for Rosa.

Once inside the Four Seasons, however, she was dismayed to discover that there was no coffee shop. There was a lounge, though, a concierge said, if she didn’t want to sit in the dining room. She should just walk straight back through the lobby, past the gift shop.

She followed his directions and the soft plush carpeting and lavish floral arrangements combined to calm her down. She saw the gift shop and stopped to look inside. Montrose Merriweather had just sent her a gorgeous accordion-pleated Hermès scarf from Paris, and she figured it might be fun to send him a souvenir from Chicago.

She picked out a paperweight with a miniature Sears Tower inside and snow that swirled when you shook it. She paid the outrageous twenty-two dollars to the woman at the cash register and started out.

Oh. She stopped. There, toward the end of the lobby where she had been headed for coffee, stood Ponce Morris.

Could it be? Or was she still shamefully hungover?

No, it was Ponce, all right, in tan corduroy pants and a beige cashmere sweater, folding a newspaper under her arm. Excited—maybe they’d get their drink together after all—Babette started toward her to say hello, but what she saw next froze her in place. Neil Grossman stepped out from behind Ponce, pulling on his suit jacket. The two of them walked a few steps, then he leaned over and whispered something in her ear, which made her laugh. She turned her face up, and he kissed her, full on the mouth. He pulled her toward him with an ease that spoke not of new love but of something warm and familiar.

Babette stumbled back into the gift shop—there was no place else to go without being seen—and kept her head down, digging inside her purse. She saw them stop near a bank of elevators where Neil kissed Ponce again. Then he kept on going, back out the way Babette came in. Ponce disappeared.

Babette bought a roll of Life Savers so that the woman behind the counter wouldn’t think she was completely insane, then left the gift shop and headed toward the elevators. A security guard approached.

“Oh, I’m sorry, am I lost?” she asked.

The guard smiled. “Not if you’re a guest here. But if you’re not, these elevators aren’t for you.”

“No, I’m not.” She walked out into the lobby past the concierge, pulled her cell phone from her bag, and called information.

“Thank you for calling the Four Seasons, how may I direct your call?”

“Ponce Morris, please.”

A moment passed. “Is this a guest, ma’am?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry, we don’t have anyone registered by that name.”

“Oh. Well, how about Dr. Neil Grossman?”

“Hold the line, please.”

After four rings, the call went to voicemail. No answer.

Babette looked at her watch: 9:50. Damn!

She took the elevator to the wrong floor and had to reenter the mall from the street. Well, so much for Thom as a source, she thought, taking the escalator steps two at a time. Chad may have seen Ponce in Neil Grossman’s office at all hours of the day and night, but she certainly wasn’t there about a baby!

She arrived at Carmen’s personal appearance right on time. She sat through a demonstration of the clothes and how to wear them, what tops went best with what bottoms. Babette knew she should be taking notes, but she couldn’t concentrate. When everyone started to applaud, Babette snapped to, got up, and congratulated Carmen, who led her to a short, round woman who was wiping her eyes.

“Mama, this is the writer from Boothby’s Review,” Carmen said.

“Ah, hello,” her mother said.

“You must be so proud of your daughter,” Babette said, as Rosa continued to dab at her tears. She nodded and let loose a string of Spanish. Babette looked to Carmen, who had already been pulled away by her admirers.

Another woman smiled at Babette. “I Rosa sister,” she said. “Carmen aunt.”

“Oh, hello,” she said gratefully. “What’s your name?”

“Isabella.”

“Very nice to meet you. Uh, I have some questions?”

Fifteen minutes later, Babette had five paragraphs of boilerplate. This Isabella could work for the FBI, Babette thought. Then again, maybe Rachel had just made her paranoid. But when she looked at her notes, she saw that any question about the boat ride, or getting from Miami to Chicago, or how the rest of the family supported itself, was when the English failed. Proud of Carmen? Loud and clear. Historical details? All vague. Fucking Rachel.

Babette glanced at her watch. She’d be late to the studio. She ran out to the street entrance of the Four Seasons, eyes peeled for Ponce, who was nowhere in sight, and gave the doorman two dollars to get her a cab. She made it to the studio by 11:29. Camille, thankfully, was with the photographer.

Had she mentioned the meat, Babette asked her pals as soon as she arrived. Not a word, they assured her. She probably devoured it for breakfast.

When the crew broke for lunch, Babette offered to stay and work the phones. She settled herself behind the reception desk, trying to absorb what she had seen that morning. She ate a turkey sandwich and considered her options. All this time she had thought that the most important thing worth having in New York was access—to power, money, fame. What she hadn’t realized until this morning was that you could have something even more valuable: information.

Especially when it was someone else’s secret.